


Portrait of a Young Man

by loveinadoorway



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010), White Collar
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-19
Updated: 2011-07-18
Packaged: 2017-10-21 21:31:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/230061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveinadoorway/pseuds/loveinadoorway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Title:</b> Portrait of a Young Man<br/><b>Paring/Characters:</b> Steve/Danny, Neal, Peter(/?)<br/><b>Genre:</b> slash (if you squint hard), crossover<br/><b>Rating:</b> R for concepts, language and because after all those years, I still can’t rate my fics<br/><b>Word count:</b> 4642<br/><b>Warnings: </b>You can’t con a con man. And you can’t write a con unless you understand stuff like that. Which I probably don’t, really. Also, dub-con/non-con hinted at. Nothing graphic, though.<b><br/>Spoilers:</b> Not really, but let’s say H50 all of S1, White Collar up to 3.06 to be on the safe side<br/><b>Disclaimers:</b> We’re all sitting in the whirlpool of my villa on the Mediterranean, sipping champagne and doing naughty things. YEAH. RRRRRIGHT.<br/><b>Summary:</b> There are specialists and… specialists. Take a case that’s going nowhere fast, an old scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours agreement, someone going WAY beyond his two mile radius and a sky as blue as that someone’s eyes and you get… this.<br/>The Portrait of a Young Man remains lost to this day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was one of those rare moments when Steve ran out of things to do in order to solve the case. There was nothing left to blow up, no witnesses to browbeat into fessin’ up, no leads left to follow, nobody to lean on and neither any computer wizardry nor any old-fashioned legwork left to perform.

Walter Tremayne remained firmly invisible, 19 million bucks’ worth of irreplaceable Polynesian artifacts stayed gone and it looked like the hitherto flawless track record of Five-O would be tarnished by abject failure.

What they needed was a way in, some form of bait, someone who could get them in position, something to lure the guy out into the open.  
What that something or who that someone might be, Steve had no idea whatsoever.

In the bull pen, Chin was desperately checking a middleman’s phone records for the umpteenth time. The result was as dismal as it had been the previous times. Kono was fiercely chewing on a pencil and Jenna was simply staring abjectly into space.  
Danny was pacing, running his hand through his hair repeatedly, looking to all intents and purposes like a man about to undergo dental surgery without the benefit of anesthetics. Interesting, Steve thought, just as Danny abruptly came to a halt.

“Steven…,” Danny ground out, face contorted “I might… know a guy.”

“A guy? What kind of a guy?” Steve looked absurdly hopeful. Not that Danny usually knew “a guy”, mind you, but right now, Steve would talk to Santa Claus, if there was even the faintest chance it might help break the case.

“A guy who might bring the right kind of… help… here to us.”

“Okay, and why does that give you a face on top of the tone?”

“I’m sure the guy will expect us to return the favor one fine day. And he’s not the kind of guy I’d like to be beholden to.”

“How so?”

“No love lost between me and the Feds in general,” Danny said with a shrug that was much too casual not to mean anything. 

Steve said nothing, not wanting to give Danny a chance to point out more reasons why the help he might be able to get them would be a bad, bad idea. They needed any help they could get. ANY HELP.  
Short of Danny having to peddle his beautiful behind to the Feds, Steve would agree to anything.

~~~

“Hawaii, Peter? SERIOUSLY?”

Neal looked like a kid in a candy store, while Peter felt the weight of having to keep Neal Caffrey in line in the tropics press down on his shoulders with the combined gross register tons of the entire Pearl Harbor fleet.

“Yes, Neal. Hawaii. Pack for a few days, our flight leaves in four hours, so get going!” 

With a grunt that spoke volumes about his reluctance, Peter took Neal’s anklet off and watched his charge bounce off excitedly, pausing briefly at the elevators to wave jauntily back at Peter.

Sometimes, Peter thought Neal had the unique gift of giving him an ulcer just by looking. That look that spoke of a world of possibilities rushing around in that twisted, warped con man brain of Neal’s made Peter’s stomach acid boil within fractions of a second.

Thank God Elizabeth had been understanding enough and had not made a scene for going to one of the most coveted vacation spots in the world without her. Okay, a stream of complaints, worries and moans about Neal might have helped matters a bit. In the end, Elizabeth was damn near consoling him for having to leave for the tropics.

He left a few last minute instructions with Jones, grabbed the suitcase Elizabeth had dropped off, went to pick Neal up at the house and after discussing suits vs. island garb for what felt like hours, managed to get them to the airport in time. It should have filled Peter with a glowing sense of achievement, but somehow all he could think about was vacationing millionaires, money, opportunities and Neal, which simply was not a good combination. At all.

When the flight attendant asked him what he wanted to drink, he bit down very hard on the impulse to say “milk of magnesia” and ordered a tomato juice instead.  
He instantly regretted NOT following his impulse when Neal charmed champagne out of the impressionable young woman. Repeatedly. In coach.

And then came the worst part. Someone had screwed up the hotel reservation and they ended up in one room. Okay, two beds, ample space, but seriously? Spending the entire day with Neal was bad enough. Peter desperately wanted to have some time to himself.  
Strangely enough, though, Neal was uncharacteristically quiet that evening and withdrew behind the Thomas Hardy novel he had bought at the airport almost immediately

~~~

Steve looked up to see a surly looking man stride into HQ, an extremely snappily dressed, VERY handsome young man in tow.  
Who was wearing a straw hat.  
And not one of your useful, sunshine-deflecting, big, floppy affairs, but a small, weird, blue number that didn’t seem to be good for anything much, except go well with the blue linen suit that managed to look both coolly comfortable and surprisingly formal at the same time.

“Agent Burke?” Steve asked tentatively in the direction of the surly guy whose dark suit screamed Fed.

“And you must be Lieutenant Commander McGarrett. Pleased to meet you. This here is Neal Caffrey.”

“Hey Peter, long time no see,” Danny smirked and sauntered over, hand outstretched.

“Good to see you, Danny,” Peter said, with a genuine, warm smile.

“And this is the guy, eh?” Danny gave Neal the once-over. 

“Yes,” Peter said with a resigned note in his voice. “Neal is the right guy, if you’re looking for a way to get at an art collector.”

“Who’s the mark?” Neal asked with a frown, wondering why Peter hadn’t bothered telling him anything besides they were going to work a case with Hawaii’s special task force.

“Chin, on screen,” McGarrett said to the quiet, Asian-looking guy lurking in the background.  
McGarrett continued:  
“Walter Tremayne, aged 44. On the surface, a collector of legit art, benefactor of many museums, eccentric millionaire. We suspect him of having ordered a heist on the Bishop museum, where the entire collection of priceless Polynesian artifacts was stolen. The pieces were in storage, waiting for the construction work on the new Polynesian Hall to finish. We’re not sure what he wants with these pieces, as his previous modus operandi suggested Walter is more interested in Renaissance paintings.”

Neal was suddenly fidgeting. He should NOT be here, should NOT work this case.  
Walter Tremayne, of all people. Suddenly, it made perfect sense for Peter to bring him to Hawaii, in spite of what must have been tremendous misgivings. How much did Peter know?

Neal cleared his throat and said quietly, “These pieces will probably be swapped for a da Vinci sketch.”

“Come again?” Danny said incredulously. How on earth could that guy KNOW that?

“Tremayne is obsessed with da Vinci’s Battle of Anghiari. While the original is now believed to be hidden behind a fresco and might be rediscovered very soon, there are several studies and sketches still in existence that were originally used to prepare the mural. One of them was… obtained… by steel tycoon Robert Miller a few years back. Now, Miller is actually collecting primitive art, mainly Polynesian.”

“And Tremayne had the artifacts stolen to entice Miller to swap them for the sketch,” Chin said softly, nodding slowly. One could almost see his brain work out and discard several ways in which to use this tidbit of information for their case.

“How can we use that to get to Tremayne?” Danny asked.

“You can’t. Miller is too big, too well connected and too careful. You can’t use him and you can’t nail him. What you need is a bigger, better bait than the da Vinci. You need to be more interesting than Miller. You need to cater to the bigger obsession,” Neal said with a sly smile.

“What did you have in mind, Neal?” Peter asked, intrigued in spite of himself.

“The holy grail of lost Renaissance art, Peter,” Neal said with the kind of grin that would have gone directly to Peter’s stomach acid production unit, if they weren’t currently in the safe environment of working on a case.

Neal strode over to the computer table and with a few clicks brought a painting on screen. A young man wrapped in a fur-lined cloak looked confidently back at them, with a half-amused expression, slight smile hinted at. Behind him, a window provided a glimpse of what might have been a Tuscan landscape.

“Portrait of a young man, painted in 1514, lost to the world in World War II. After the Germans took this and several other masterpieces from Krakow, Poland, it was on display in Berlin for a while and then went missing in the last days of the war. Wilhelm de Palisieaux, Hitler’s ‘art protector’, was suspected of taking the Raphael, but never admitted to anything. After he was hung for crimes against humanity, there was no trace whatsoever of the painting anymore.”

Peter was grinning. A Raphael, go figure. And of course Neal knew ALL about it. Talking about obsessions…

“For a moment I was worried you were talking about the Raphael Sara wants back from you,” Peter said, still grinning widely.

“Have I ever admitted to having that particular painting in my possession? I don’t think so. And besides, a lost one is so much more alluring, because of the mystery that surrounds it.”

“What do you need?” That was Steve, all hard facts and revved to move forward, sick and tired of waiting, grasping the chance to shift gears back into action as soon as he saw it.

“Canvas, oil paint, brushes, an easel, a few odds and sods and a day to paint it. I’ll make you a detailed list. Then we age it and while we wait for all of that to finish, I make my move.”

“How will you get Tremayne to talk to you?” Steve asked, nodding to Chin to prepare to get all the supplies Neal had rattled off.

“We… go.. way back,” Neal said, looking suddenly fairly ill at ease.

No, Walter Tremayne did not spark any happy memories, but there was simply no way Neal would share those with anyone. Not even Peter. Maybe especially not Peter, given how their mutual trust had all but crumbled over the art from the Nazi sub and how they were back to almost square one, with Peter permanently annoyed by whatever Neal might say, do or wear. And that was on a good day.

~~~

Steve was watching Neal paint with amazement and incredulity. He had never seen anything like it. The man was rapidly recreating the lost Raphael with sure strokes of the brush, humming a piece of classical music under his breath. It looked deceptively easy and, for lack of a better word, extremely masterful. 

Danny and Peter were sitting nearby, drinking unbelievable amounts of coffee and apparently swapping old war stories.  
Steve had understood immediately why Danny had been so reluctant to ask a favor of the Fed. Burke was a great guy. As straight as they came in his dealings with people and in his job, but definitely one of those people who would mercilessly call in the return favor when they needed it and it would not be something as easy as sending the man malasadas for breakfast.

Caffrey suddenly paused, wiped his hands on a rag, took out his cell and dialed a number.

“Walter? It’s Jimmy. Jimmy Mulligan.” Irish accent flawless, the entire stance of the man had subtly shifted as he spoke, gliding effortlessly into character. Impressive yet again.

“I hear you got a nice batch of South Sea goodies. Can I interest you in a trade?” Caffrey laughed heartily, then continued, “No, Walter. I believe I have something better to offer than those horseys Iron Man can come up with. Ah, you know me. Always knew what you needed.”

Burke had walked over and was listening intently. It quickly became clear that Neal was reeling the mark in, with one subtle hint after the other. It also became clear that the entire conversation had a decidedly sexual undertone.

“Walter, acushla, you know how I was always partial to long-haired men. ESPECIALLY when they wear fur. Yes, I can assure you I have been hot on the trail of the art protector since last we spoke and I did indeed find that young man. See, Kneisel may have recanted, but he had told the truth initially. Billy had the damn thing the entire time and knowing that, the rest was easy for a man with my connections.”

Nice bit of code there. Horses, Iron Man, that was the da Vinci and Miller. Then on to the Raphael and Wilhelm de Palisieaux - Wilhelm, William, Billy. Kneisel was an art restorer who briefly had claimed to have seen de Palisieaux with the Raphael, but had later denied the entire thing. Yes, Neal was good at this. Very, very good.

“Yes, I can. No, not a problem, but I need a few days to arrange for the young man to travel here. Yes, meet you Friday. Where? Yup, hang on, I’ll jot that down.”

Caffrey wrote some instructions for the meeting place and time down, then ended the conversation with some lewd comments that actually made Danny blush.  
Steve snickered at his partner’s discomfort. 

Burke looked annoyed again.  
Which he shouldn’t, Steve thought, given how Caffrey had managed the conversation and had even set up a meeting with such ease that Steve couldn’t help but continue to be extremely impressed. Con man or not, the guy had a razor sharp mind as well as moves an actor might envy. Too bad he had that arrangement with the FBI already...

~~~

_  
It hurt.    
_

_  
It always hurt, but Neal kept his eyes closed and didn’t make a sound. He needed the money Tremayne had stored in a safety deposit box in Boston, needed it to make sure they could pull off their con to end all cons. So he had to endure. Had to pretend he enjoyed being pawed by that ape. Had to make pretty with that ape.   
_

_  
That ape who got off on other people’s pain.   
_

_  
So he had to lay here in the dark, getting hurt again and again.   
_

Neal woke with a gasp and a stifled sob.  
Great, so the nightmares were back. He’d had them for months after they had lifted the money, making Tremayne believe it had burned when someone smashed into the getaway car.

The man had not been happy to hear that and Neal had almost died. Raped and tortured over and over, then tossed out of a speeding car, it had been a miracle he lived to tell the story. Or, actually, to NOT tell the story. Never tell the story. To nobody.

He turned to look at Peter. Relieved, he noted that the other man was sound asleep. The last thing Neal needed was for Peter to notice anything amiss. He could do this. He could go through with the con and he could make sure Tremayne wouldn’t touch him again. Maybe.

  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>  There are specialists and… specialists. Take a case that’s going nowhere fast, an old scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours agreement, someone going WAY beyond his two mile radius and a sky as blue as that someone’s eyes and you get… this.

**Title:** Portrait of a Young Man Pt. 2  
 **Paring/Characters:** Steve/Danny, Neal, Peter(/?)  
 **Genre:** slash (if you squint hard), crossover  
 **Rating:** R for concepts, language and because after all those years, I still can’t rate my fics  
 **Word count:** 4642  
 **Warnings:** You can’t con a con man. And you can’t write a con unless you understand stuff like that. Which I probably don’t, really. Also, dub-con/non-con hinted at. Nothing graphic, though. **  
Spoilers:** Not really, but let’s say H50 all of S1, White Collar up to 3.06 to be on the safe side  
 **Disclaimers:** We’re all sitting in the whirlpool of my villa on the Mediterranean, sipping champagne and doing naughty things. YEAH. RRRRRIGHT.  
 **Summary:** There are specialists and… specialists. Take a case that’s going nowhere fast, an old scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours agreement, someone going WAY beyond his two mile radius and a sky as blue as that someone’s eyes and you get… this.  
The Portrait of a Young Man remains lost to this day.

On Thursday, Neal worked on aging the finished painting. Steve stuck around, once more fascinated by that insight into a world he had known nothing about. It was a little bit like watching a movie, he thought as Neal first carefully heated the back of the painting, then cooled it down quickly, making the paint crack. A mixture that looked like something between dog poop and an experimental dessert in an expensive restaurant was rubbed gently into the cracks.

“I could tell you what it’s made of, but then I’d have to shoot you,” Neal said to Steve with a grin and wink.

Steve did ask a few more questions about forgery and grifting, though, and Neal answered readily. He told Steve a few entertaining stories, probably carefully edited. When Steve laughed uproariously about something that might not have been entirely appropriate, Neal started talking more freely.

That way, while Neal kept working his magic on the Raphael, Steve got a free Conning 101 training course.  
When the painting was sufficiently prepared, Neal gently put it into the oven to finish the aging process. As he turned around, he saw Steve looking at him with an unreadable expression, arms folded over his chest.

“Ask you a question, Caffrey?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“Why are you so damned uneasy about meeting Tremayne, when you’re so damned confident your painting will hold up to scrutiny at the same time?” Steve cocked an eyebrow.

“I have a history with Tremayne,” Neal said, expression guarded again.

“Yeah, I kinda got that the first time around, Neal,” Steve replied evenly, eyes firmly fixed on Neal. “What I would like to know is what Tremayne did to you and how you think you’ll avoid him doing whatever again this time around.”

Neal’s thoughts were racing. He wasn’t entirely convinced Steve was to be trusted, but on the other hand, it seemed a lot easier confiding in him than Peter, with whom he would still have to work once this was over. Whom he would still have to look in the eye every day. Plus, the man looked like he was pretty much unflappable and might actually not entirely suck at posing as…

“I.. uh.. I might need a bit of.. a protection detail.”

He forced himself to look into Steve’s eyes. The other man’s were calm and steady, promising safety.

“The last time I had to pretend..,” Neal ground out. How the hell was he supposed to say this? “I had to pretend to be sexually interested in Tremayne. I thought flirting was enough. By the time I realized it wasn’t, it was too late and had I pulled back then, he would’ve killed me, I’m sure.”

If there was one thing Steve had been taught in his SEAL past, it was reading people. And it worked – on anyone except Danny, of course. He took in Neal’s tightly clenched fists, knuckles stark white, the set of his mouth and the expression in the other man’s eyes and it was pretty clear the pretending had gone too damn far and Neal hadn’t been willing at all.

“Did the fucker hurt you?” Steve asked softly.

“Yeah. Badly. Gets a kick out of that.”

Neal couldn’t look at Steve anymore. He was staring at the tip of his loafers like his life depended on it.

“Okay, that clinches it. I’m coming with. Guessing he wouldn’t want to mess with a tall, dangerous boyfriend, would he?”

Neal looked up. Steve was smiling slightly, but his eyes were serious and determined.

“Don’t think so,” Neal whispered, exhaling softly.  
He hadn’t even realized he had been holding his breath. This shit might actually work without him ending up bleeding and broken in a ditch again.

~~~

They pulled up in front of Tremayne’s mansion the next day. Full backup was in place and should be with them in under a minute, once the code word was spoken.

“A resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible,” Neal said, expression grim.

Steve looked questioningly at him.

“Thomas Hardy. Friend of mine is always fond of bombarding me with wise quotes whenever the shit hits the fan.” Neal grinned apologetically.

“Why Hardy?” Steve asked, straightening his black suit as they got out of the car.

“Because Peter bought a Grisham novel at the airport,” Neal said with a shrug, as if that statement made perfect sense.  
Okay, in the Burke-Caffrey universe, it probably did, Steve thought wryly, just like some stuff only made sense between him and Danny.

They entered the sprawling mansion. It had all the warmth and charm of a mausoleum. Gold and marble everywhere, expensive but tasteless furniture and way too much stucco on the ceilings and walls.

Tremayne looked exactly like the sick bastard he was. The good life had left its mark on his face and figure and the greedy glint in his eyes as he drank in the sight of Neal made Steve want to hit the guy. But this was a con, so no hitting, shooting or blowing up until the mark had been sufficiently conned to hand over the stuff they had come here for.

Despite what Danny kept telling everybody, Steve KNEW these things and he really, really wished Danny were here to see him not dangle the guy out, over or in front of anything. Or send him swimming with less than agreeable fishes. Even whispering it so Danny could hear it over the earpiece was out of the question, because Tremayne’s eyes were now travelling slowly across Steve’s body. He suppressed a shiver. Nasty.

Good thing Neal brought out the big guns at that point – he unrolled the Raphael. Tremayne almost came in his pants, from the look of it. The entire thing went down so ludicrously easy, Steve should’ve know it couldn’t last.

The loaded the Polynesian art into the car, when Tremayne suddenly strode from the mansion, pack of heavily armed goons in tow.

“You know, I just thought… why not have both the Raphael AND the da Vinci,” Tremayne said with a nasty grin, as he signaled to his goons to seize them both.

“Can’t help myself, Steven, but that reminds me of that one time in OREGON,” Neal said, enunciating clearly as he gave the code word for the team.

The goons hustled them inside the mansion again. Apparently, Tremayne objects to having people killed on his front lawn, but not in his living room.

Neal turned to Tremayne and put on the charm. Didn’t look like Tremayne was having any of it, Steve thought, as he tried desperately to figure out a way to reach the spare in the ankle holster without getting either of them killed. Where the hell was their backup?

“I mean, c’mon, Walter, acushla…” Neal stammered, obviously getting more and more desperate as he noticed that this approach wasn’t really working.

“Ah, yes, Jimmy. ACUSHLA,” Tremayne sneers, “you always were a worthless piece of shit, barely good enough to be fucked until you pass out. But you always did have a nice ass. Pity, really.”

With that, Tremayne raised his gun and fired. Neal ducked, so the shot went just a little wide, catching Neal in the shoulder instead of the chest.

Fortunately, that caught the goons completely off guard and while everyone’s attention was on Neal and the blood that blossomed on his white suit like some obscene carnation, Steve dropped to a crouch, drew his gun and shot as many of the goons as he could, before grabbing Neal and making a run for it.

They paused briefly in the library. Steve needed to concentrate on their escape route. In true SEAL fashion, he had of course scanned the entire lay of the land for possible exits. Unfortunately, it looked like he would have to pick the worst. The riskiest.

“And yet to every bad there is a worse,” Neal ground out as he watched his blood drip on the white marble floor.

“Lemme guess, Hardy again?” Steve grunted as he hoisted the shorter man over his shoulder and made a run for the terrace.

Neal chuckled weakly, then hissed as Steve leapt over the banister in mid-run and Neal’s wound connected painfully with Steve’s shoulder. That hiss, however, was completely drowned out by the ensuing scream as Neal realized they were plummeting down a sheer cliff, towards the ocean below. Far below.

They hit the water hard. Steve had tried to prepare as best he could, but he had had to let go of Neal on the way down. As soon as the ocean closed over him with the familiar rush, he opened his eyes and looked for Neal.

The other man was not making any effort to get back up to the surface on his own, so Steve swam towards him. Yes, Caffrey was unconscious. His blood was forming a trail in the clear water and Steve knew he had to get the man out of there as quickly as he could. Wouldn’t be long until they’d get company, one way or another. And if Steve had to choose between goons and sharks, he’d take the goons any day.

Steve swam towards the other side of the bay. When he had checked for possible exits, he had of course immediately seen that the entire bay had that steep cliff, with the next beaches 5, maybe 6 miles to the East. But the proprietors of the neighboring estate had built steep stairs into the sheer rock face, with a small pier at the water’s edge.

He pushed Neal’s unconscious body on the pier, then dragged himself up.  
The stairs looked extremely forbidding from down here. He wasn’t entirely sure if he would be able to carry Neal all the way up there.  
He pulled himself together. He was still a trained SEAL. There was no other way, so he WOULD carry the man up there to safety.

Half way up, Steve heard voices.  
At first, he thought it was Tremayne’s gang of goons, but then he recognized Danny’s and Peter’s upset voices and relief flooded his entire body. He set Neal down gently and looked up. Peter and Danny came hurtling down the stairs, with apparently no concern for their own safety.

When Danny saw Steve, he immediately launched into his customary rant. Weirdly enough, the dynamics between Peter and Neal seemed to operate along similar lines and he heard Peter rant and rave as well. The Fed stopped abruptly, however, when he saw the blood on Neal and noticed just how white the other man’s skin was as he lay there, unmoving.

From then on, Peter was all silent, stoic efficiency.  
Neal was carried the rest of the way up the cliff and into the waiting car that had almost miraculously appeared, was driven to hospital, operated on and it was only after Neal, still unconscious and very white, had been wheeled into a nice, sunny hospital room, bed and all, that Peter seemed to finally relax.

Tremayne and his remaining goons were safely behind bars. The Polynesian artifacts had been returned to a teary-eyed and excessively grateful curator at the museum. They had, in fact, wrapped up the case and McGarrett and Five-O were quite pleased with the way things had gone.  
Steve and Danny had left the hospital to report to the new governor and Peter had more or less collapsed in a rickety chair next to Neal’s hospital bed.

When Neal awoke, it was dark outside and Peter was sleeping uncomfortably in his chair.  
Neal was thirsty and fairly woozy.  
There was a glass of water on the trolley next to the bed and he shifted carefully on the bed to get it. Before he could reach it, however, a hand grasped the glass and Peter helped Neal drink.

“Hey Peter,” said Neal after sinking back exhaustedly.

“Hey Neal.”

Neal grinned widely at Peter. He wasn’t entirely sure just how he had survived diving off a cliff with an insane SEAL, but it felt awesome to be alive. To his surprise, Peter returned the smile. It was the old Peter smile, the one that spoke of tentative trust and something like friendship. Yup, it felt definitely awesome to be alive.

Neal made himself comfortable and just before his eyes closed, he said weakly:  
“So, that was Hawaii then. What are we going to do next week?”


End file.
